> where it will be reviewed using F-Droid’s proven ethical review process.
Trade one gate keeper for another.
Something tells me you don’t know what decentralized means.
Mobifree – An open-source mobile ecosystem
161–170 of 182 posts
Re: Mobifree – An open-source mobile ecosystem
#162Earlier quoted context omitted.
Droidify is so vastly superior it’s not even close. Fdroid still has the privileged extension whereas droidify and Neodroid can use Shizuku and other options. I do think that droidify is an unfortunate naming choice though.
F-Droid Basic, a cut down version of the official F-Droid client, supports the Android 12+ unattended app updates [1]. This allows for a store to update apps without user confirmation (if it was the store which installed (or updated?) the app originally) [2]. [1] https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroidclient/-/merge_requests/1216 [2] https://www.xda-developers.com/android-12-alternative-app-st...
NeoStore can do that as well. It doesn't require root, it's simply an option.
Re: Mobifree – An open-source mobile ecosystem
#163Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just to add, F-Droid is not a guarantee against adware. There are definitely adware apps (and by extension, maybe even spyware) on F-Droid.
Adware is marked as an Anti-Feature in the details of an app in F-Droid[1]. Since non-free software is not allowed on F-Droid, and most Ad platforms aren't free software, you're unlikely to find any, though. There's currently only 30 apps with this Anti-Feature[2]. [1]: https://f-droid.org/docs/Anti-Features/#Ads [2]: https://monitor.f-droid.org/anti-feature/Ads
I'd never use F-Droid due to how insecure it is.
They still modify all app signatures, so you can't even verify what you're installing is authentic.
Re: Mobifree – An open-source mobile ecosystem
#164Earlier quoted context omitted.
I mean, f-droid allows adding custom repositories that don't follow the main one's rules. There's a decent amount of apps that do this for one reason or another. Other apps, like for example OSMAnd, have a special f-droid build with google services removed, leading to the lack of some features like android auto support. The client doesn't support any form of purchases and I don't think it ever will. I think you'd be…
I don't see why fdroid would never provide a payment feature. At least for ethical reasons. Fdroid focuses on free software (and is also concerned with privacy and other features). Free software does not need to be gratis. As long as the payment code is open source. At worst it would be a NonFreeNet anti feature. Could be mitigated by supporting several payment platform. Of course it could be hard to set up in practi…
You're right, but I don't think there's any incentive to do it. They pride themselves on having no tracking or otherwise user information (not even app popularity statistics), and adding any form of payment would require managing user accounts or coming up with impractical multi-device proof-of-purchase sharing solutions.
It's also worth mentioning that since everything on the store would still remain free software, making it legal to share purchased copies, people seeking to use it as a business model (like the parent post) would generally be ill-served.
Re: Mobifree – An open-source mobile ecosystem
#165Earlier quoted context omitted.
personal email failed because email is a flawed system that was initially designed to work in a trusted environment free of bad actors I'm as worried about massive platforms playing gatekeepers as much as the next guy, but it's also fairly clear to see that any service that isn't constantly moderated will be overcome with a flood of malicious crap. it practically guarantees closed platforms will proliferate
I generally agree with you, but there’s a difference between a closed platform, and a platform that prevents you from using any other platforms.
Every platform that has an controlled access point, which to be clear is the entirety of the public DNS system, is by default a closed platform
There do not exist open HTTPS gateways for all of the major internet services such that anyone can connect - They’re *all* mediated by some access control gatekeeper, it’s like one of the core functions of the current Internet routing system is to not allow for infinite anonymous peers like you would see in TOR or other anonymized routing services
You can say that this should be the case or not but it’s just the facts
It’s precisely the same argument as: “We have plenty of water fountains, As long as you look white then you can use them all you want.”
Re: Mobifree – An open-source mobile ecosystem
#166Earlier quoted context omitted.
Adware is marked as an Anti-Feature in the details of an app in F-Droid[1]. Since non-free software is not allowed on F-Droid, and most Ad platforms aren't free software, you're unlikely to find any, though. There's currently only 30 apps with this Anti-Feature[2]. [1]: https://f-droid.org/docs/Anti-Features/#Ads [2]: https://monitor.f-droid.org/anti-feature/Ads
I'd never use F-Droid due to how insecure it is. They still modify all app signatures, so you can't even verify what you're installing is authentic.
"insecure" is a strong word that shouldn't be used willy-nilly like that. F-Droid recompiles all of its applications to ensure that everything in them is free software, and that the source code provided by the upstream is actually what is in the released binary. To this end, they produce reproducible builds, allowing anyone to rebuild the sources locally and verify that they match.
Re: Mobifree – An open-source mobile ecosystem
#167Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I won't trust no tracking if it's non free. Meanwhile, lots of non-mobile free software includes tracking (telemetry) these days. The cynic in me has had to switch to I won't trust no tracking if it's not enforced by a security boundary.
Which free software does this without asking / telling the user? Especially free software that tells you no tracking? But yes, free software is not a guarantee against tracking. It only allows auditing and be modified.
Here's a sampling of stuff I've semi-recently encountered on Github that all spy on you by default. For some, it's undocumented, for others it's a minor subsection in the docs. (Some of them are source-available not free, I didn't keep track as I collected the URLs.)
https://github.com/zed-industries/zed
https://github.com/microsoft/vscode
https://github.com/keystonejs/keystone
https://github.com/meilisearch/meilisearch
https://github.com/hasura/graphql-engine
https://github.com/manticoresoftware/manticoresearch/
https://github.com/coder/code-server
https://github.com/loft-sh/devpod
https://github.com/quickwit-oss/quickwit
https://github.com/rilldata/rill-developer/
https://github.com/hocus-dev/hocus
https://github.com/firezone/firezone
Here's a write-up of how bad it gets -- it's pretty obnoxious: https://www.roboleary.net/tools/2022/04/20/vscode-telemetry....
Re: Mobifree – An open-source mobile ecosystem
#168It would be great to have some basic, no nonsense Android applications, with least possible permissions possible and no internet connectivity. Some examples: SMS app, tasks, calculator, authenticator (2FA), weather, audio recorder, image/photo viewer, barcode/qr code scanner, calendar, file manager, music player, etc. Small app sizes, no Kotlin or support libraries. With very limited feature set, to keep maintenance…
What’s wrong with Kotlin?
I just noticed that apks built with Kotlin are a bit bigger than ones written in Java. Could be my own lack of knowledge, so I would be interested to read up on how to optimize Kotlin apks in size.
Re: Mobifree – An open-source mobile ecosystem
#169[dead]
Re: Mobifree – An open-source mobile ecosystem
#170Earlier quoted context omitted.
Which free software does this without asking / telling the user? Especially free software that tells you no tracking? But yes, free software is not a guarantee against tracking. It only allows auditing and be modified.
Here's a sampling of stuff I've semi-recently encountered on Github that all spy on you by default. For some, it's undocumented, for others it's a minor subsection in the docs. (Some of them are source-available not free, I didn't keep track as I collected the URLs.) https://github.com/zed-industries/zed https://github.com/microsoft/vscode https://github.com/keystonejs/keystone https://github.com/meilisearch/meilisea…
VSCode is proprietary.
That's why the difference between Codium and VSCode matters. Actually, IIRC the code from the ms repo does not do telemetry, they add it to the binary they distribute.